Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee: Difference between revisions

This Arbitration Committee has been mentioned by a media organization: Ramey, Corinne (May 7, 2018). "The 15 People Who Keep Wikipedia's Editors From Killing Each Other". Wall Street Journal.

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Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Colonestarrice (talk) 11:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find the discretionary sanctions page extremely obtuse and difficult to read? It reads like all of the end-user license agreements that I routinely skip. I can't get more than few sentences into it before my brain turns off and refuses to go any further. I know that it would probably take an act of god to accomplish, but is there any collective will to take a look at this document and rewrite it? Or, perhaps leave this official legalese document as-is, but create another page that attempts to explain discretionary sanctions to regular editors in plain English? Here are some examples of problems and/or obtuse language that I see in this page:

• Literally nowhere on this page does it ever make any attempt to actually define what discretionary sanctions are. The "this page in a nutshell" part at the top describes discretionary sanctions as a "special system", and then goes on to describe what they accomplish, who can place them, and how they were originally authorized. But it never actually says what they are. That's like attempting to describe an apple by saying, "Apples are special objects, they make your tongue feel good, and you can obtain one by going to a grocery store." This page desperately needs a lead paragraph that is written in plain English.
• The entire "Definitions" section is useless in my opinion, and only exists because someone was trying to write this page in the format of a legal contract. On Wikipedia, we don't have Definitions sections to describe what things like AE, AN, and ARCA are. We just link to them like this: AE, AN, ARCA; and that is generally sufficient.
• The definition of the word "sanction" itself is problematic and confusing. The way it's defined and used on this page, a sanction can be both a restriction on what you're allowed to do, as well as the punishment for disobeying that restriction. So, you can be sanctioned for disobeying a sanction. According to the strict definition of the word, the sanction is the punishment or penalty. But, I don't think it's accurate to describe a 1RR restriction applied to an article as a "sanction". The sanction happens when you break the 1RR restriction. (To be clear, in the suggestion for a lead section that I've made below, I continue to use the word "sanction" incorrectly, as it is defined here and commonly used in discussion on WP.)
• "Where there is a conflict between any individual provision authorising standard discretionary sanctions for an area of conflict and any provision in the standard discretionary sanctions procedure, the provision in the standard procedure will control." I've read this sentence 10 times and I still have no idea what it means. But I'm glad I never tried to become a lawyer. If this content is truly necessary on this page, it should be relegated to a footnote in tiny font at the bottom of the page. The same goes for the "Continuity" section, and any other sections that are comprised exclusively of legalese.
• The entire "Guidance for editors" discussion seems irrelevant to this page. The first part of it attempts to give editors advice on how to behave nicely, which seems disconnected from the purpose of this page. The second part of it attempt to tell editors how to properly participate in an arbitration enforcement case, which is already described in detail on other pages where an AE participant is much more likely to find and read it.
• The "Role of administrators" and "Expectations of administrators" sections are largely duplicative, and could easily be combined into one section.

I think that the first problem is really the largest problem. I would suggest adding a lead section along the lines of this:

Discretionary sanctions are a set of additional editing restrictions that administrators can choose to apply to certain editors and/or articles, to maintain a stable and collaborative editing environment. Discretionary sanctions can only be applied by administrators, and they can only be applied to articles that are within a topic area that has been specifically approved by the Arbitration Committee. In general, the topic areas that have been approved for discretionary sanctions are usually controversial and contentious; therefore, discretionary sanctions are intended to keep the peace in these topic areas and allow editors to continue editing these articles without constant disruptions.

In order to put discretionary sanctions in place, an administrator must ensure that editors have been properly notified. The procedures for notifying and warning editors about discretionary sanctions are described in more detail below.

Discretionary sanctions can take many forms. Common examples of discretionary sanctions include:

• Revert restrictions - restricting how often editors may revert edits on an article (for example, editors may be disallowed from performing more than one revert in a 24-hour period on a specific page).
• Interaction bans - preventing one editor from interacting with another specific editor, or preventing two editors from interacting with each other.
• Topic bans - banning an editor from making edits to articles within a specific topic area.
• Blocks - temporarily blocking an editor from editing any page, or a specific set of pages.
• Page protection - protecting an article so that certain classes of editors are no longer allowed to edit it.
• Specific content restrictions - disallowing changes to specific content within an article, unless there is clear consensus for those changes

Thoughts? —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 21:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]